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Israel and the Church Romans and Revelation

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Israel and the Church Romans and Revelation ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH in ROMANS AND REVELATION Towan Greene December 2016 A thesis submitted in partial The University of Sheffield fulfilment of the requirements for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History ABSTRACT The aim of this investigation is to understand the place of Israel, and its relationship to the church, according to Romans and Revelation. Reflecting on the theological resonances and dissonances between these two texts allows us to hear what each has to say about Israel more clearly, and to begin to hear what the New Testament as a whole has to say about Israel more fully. The temporal distance between Romans and Revelation introduces a socio-historical dimension to such theological comparison, inviting us to ask, How did we get from the Israel-theology of Romans to the Israel- theology of Revelation? What is the nature of the trajectory and what were the forces and factors that shaped its development? Attempting to answer these questions highlights one particularly interesting point of intersection between the two texts, from which to further explore their engagement with Israel: the influence of Rome. It is in considering the dynamics of the Rome-Israel-church triad—and in particular the noxious effect of Nero’s persecution—that the thesis makes its most distinctive contribution to understanding the theological and social relationship between Israel and the church in Romans and Revelation. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I INTRODUCTION III PART I: ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH IN ROMANS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO ROMANS 3 Authorship 3 Date 3 The Text of Romans 4 Background and Purpose 7 The Readers of Romans 12 CHAPTER 2: ROMANS 1-4 19 Romans 1 20 Romans 2 21 Romans 3 25 Romans 4 30 CHAPTER 3: ROMANS 9:1-11:15 35 Romans 9:1-5 36 Romans 9:6-18 38 Romans 9:19-29 40 Romans 9:30-10:4 43 Romans 10:5-21 48 Romans 11:1-10 53 Romans 11:11-15 56 CHAPTER 4: ROMANS 11:16-36 67 Romans 11:16-24 67 Romans 11:25-27 80 Romans 11:28-36 97 CHAPTER 5: ROMANS 14-15 101 What is 14:1-15:23 all about? 101 What is the nature of the tension? 104 Who are the Weak and the Strong? 106 The Purpose of Paul’s Address 109 PART II: ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH IN REVELATION CHAPTER 6: INTRODUCTION TO REVELATION 115 Authorship and Date 115 Feminist Criticism 126 Interpretation of Symbolism 132 Visionary Experience 135 CHAPTER 7: THE JEWS IN THE MESSAGES 141 The Message to Smyrna 141 The Message to Philadelphia 149 Answering Frankfurter 151 CHAPTER 8: THE 144,000 157 Not Only Jews 157 Factoring in the Multitude 161 CHAPTER 9: JERUSALEM 167 Is Babylon Jerusalem? 167 Jerusalem in Chapter 11 179 The Symbolical Function of Jerusalem 182 PART III: ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH IN ROMANS AND REVELATION CHAPTER 10: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: ISRAEL IN ROMANS AND REVELATION 191 Israel and the Church in Typological Perspective 191 The Practical Function of the Law 199 Redefinition of the ‘Jew’ 201 Eschatological Sequence 207 CHAPTER 11: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: NERO’S PERSECUTION 213 Nero’s Persecution of the Christians 213 The Role of the Jews in Nero’s Persecution 219 CHAPTER 12: CONCLUDING ANALYSIS: ISRAEL, THE CHURCH, AND ROME 223 Rome in Romans and Revelation 223 The Effect of Rome on Israel in Romans and Revelation 237 WORKS CITED 245 Ancient Works 245 Modern Works 247 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My first happy task is to express my thanks to those who have strengthened and encouraged me throughout this endeavour: Becky, my wife and my best friend, for being a constant source of faith, hope and love; Luke, Ben, Matt, and John M, my four mighty men; Mum, Dad, and Grandpa John, for all their support; Mark, my reassuring supervisor; and everyone at the Printhouse, which has been an outstanding setting in which to research and to write. My ultimate thanks, in both senses, is reserved for Jesus, who knows that all of this is for him. i INTRODUCTION The aim of the following investigation is to understand the place of Israel, and its relationship to the church, according to Romans and Revelation. In the first instance and for the bulk of the thesis this task takes an exegetical form. Comparative analysis of the conclusions reached in connection with each text then paves the way for a more historically-oriented discussion towards the close, with Romans and Revelation acting as markers in history that bookend a crucial period of development in the composition and theology of the early church. It is here that the thesis makes its most distinctive contribution to understanding the theological and social relationship between Israel and the church in the first century—these two texts not having been brought into sustained conversation on this subject before. Romans and Revelation both represent exciting fields of enquiry, and particularly in connection with our Israel theme. Romans 9-11 is the only direct and detailed consideration of Israel in the New Testament, and yet this is but a concentrated confrontation of the Israel-related questions that reverberate everywhere through the letter. Engaging with Romans forces us to think about Israel in the past (if the gospel has definitively revealed the righteousness of God then what was the point of the Torah and its possessors?), Israel in the present (how are Gentiles to relate to Jews both within and without the Christ movement?) and Israel in the future (does God reserve a special plan and purpose for his once-chosen people?). As for the Book of Revelation, here we have a text positively saturated with images and phrases drawn from the Hebrew Bible. The appearance of “one hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel” in Rev. 7:4 recommends Revelation to some as an oasis of promise for ethnic Israel amongst the relative wilderness of the New Testament in that regard, whilst many others insist that it strikes the most decisive blow of all to that position. That Revelation has the capacity to foster such contradictory convictions makes it a iii fascinating and important text to interpret in connection with the place of Israel in New Testament theology. Bringing precisely these two texts into conversation on the subject of Israel is appealing and productive for a number of reasons. Each is an eminent and exquisite work in its own right, though they represent quite different voices and traditions within the spectrum of New Testament thought. Reflecting on the theological resonances and dissonances between them allows us to hear what each has to say about Israel more clearly, and to begin to hear what the New Testament as a whole has to say about Israel more fully. The fact that Romans stands chronologically somewhere towards the beginning of the New Testament canon and Revelation somewhere towards the end introduces a socio-historical dimension to such theological comparison: How did we get from the Israel-theology of Romans to the Israel-theology of Revelation? What is the nature of the trajectory and what were the forces and factors that shaped its development? Attempting to answer these questions highlights one particularly interesting point of intersection between the two texts, from which to further explore their engagement with Israel: the influence of Rome. This is in an integral part of the context for every New Testament writing, but it comes to the fore in Romans and Revelation more so than elsewhere: in the former because the destination of the letter is the capital itself, and in the latter because the judgment of Rome is its great theme. Outline The thesis has a simple tripartite structure of a section on Romans, a section on Revelation, and a section of comparative analysis. The Romans section treats in turn the three blocks of the text most relevant to the Israel question: the foundation established in chapters 1-4 relating to the role of the law and what it is to be a Jew; the argument sustained in chapters 9-11 relating to the question of whether God has rejected his ancient people; and the practices exhorted in chapters 14-15 relating to the social functioning of the church. The Revelation section likewise treats the three areas of greatest significance in connection with Israel: the references to ‘those who say they are Jews and are not’ in the messages to Smyrna and Philadelphia; the two appearances of the 144,000 who are introduced as being ‘sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel’ (7:4); and the enigmatic role of Jerusalem in Revelation 11. The question of what overall conclusions may be drawn from these individual investigations is largely left for iv the third and final section of comparative analysis to explore. The disjunctures emerging from this analysis then propel us into a closing consideration of the influence of the Roman Empire on how Israel is perceived and treated in our two texts. Additional notes Quotations from the Bible are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition).1 In the cases where I have adapted the translation (usually so as to make it more literal), this has been indicated. Textual data comes from The Greek New Testament.2 Ancient sources were accessed through the Loeb Classical Library, Ante-Nicene Fathers, and Old Testament Pseudepigrapha; see ‘Works Cited’ for a full breakdown. Abbreviated titles of ancient Jewish and Christian sources follow the conventions of the SBL Handbook of Style, and other ancient sources the conventions of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (though alternative forms of abbreviation have been preserved in quotations from other authors).
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